


fighting hard off paradise

by spektri



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Lie Low At Lupin's, M/M, a lot of thinking and feeling things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 15:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7538929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spektri/pseuds/spektri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When there's twelve years of tragedy and two wars between them, is it any wonder it's hard to begin again?</p><p>-</p><p>  <i>When they finally kiss, in the kitchenette of Remus’s small apartment, they meld together like they’d never been apart, except for where there used to be muscle there are jagged lines and where there used to be softness there are bones, except for how Remus is tired and disillusioned and Sirius angry and bitter, except for how there are thirteen years of tragedy between them. But the illusion holds the same, they fit together like they used to (as if they were always meant to) and if the context wasn’t what it is Remus thinks he might have even, at that moment, been happy.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	fighting hard off paradise

**Author's Note:**

> it's been too many years for me to still be hung up about these two but here we are and there you go.

When they finally kiss, it’s not fireworks—not like it was the first time around, when they were young and it was new, an explosion of long suppressed feelings unleashed—but truthfully, ‘fireworks’ is the last thing Remus wants at that point. Maybe he’s too old, tired, cynical, or maybe the thing he missed wasn’t the passion but the stability, familiarity, the warmth.

When they finally kiss, in the kitchenette of Remus’s small apartment, they meld together like they’d never been apart, except for where there used to be muscle there are jagged lines and where there used to be softness there are bones, except for how Remus is tired and disillusioned and Sirius angry and bitter, except for how there are thirteen years of tragedy between them. But the illusion holds the same, they fit together like they used to (as if they were always meant to) and if the context wasn’t what it is Remus thinks he might have even, at that moment, been happy.

When the kiss is over (they lean against each other, hands intertwined, panting slightly) Remus thinks—he usually does, brain in overdrive, and never had there been anyone better to silence it than Sirius—how there’s been no conversation, no charting of feelings: no map to follow. He realizes, there’s no-one in Sirius’s life but him; not in this capacity, not with James gone and Peter worse than. And Remus close, close enough to desperately reach to in his loneliness, trying to find a way out. Remus—he never stopped loving Sirius, but thinking that he knew he was a murderer soured it into something ugly, and how do you come back from that?

‘Moony,’ says Sirius, with his husky voice of a man who’s only recently found his words again, ‘Stop thinking.’

If it were any funnier, Remus would choke out the laugh that tickles his throat, but there’s too much off for him to manage it. Once upon a time those words were soft and playful, but now hardly a ghost of it. Remus doesn’t know if there’s any playfulness left in Sirius, and the mere thought of it makes his chest tighten painfully. What he would give for a childish prank (the same kind that used to make him scoff and roll his eyes and pretend all kinds of disapproval), but Sirius has lost his innocence—joke as they might’ve about it, as a boy Sirius was just as innocent as the rest of them.

‘Remus,’ Sirius says now, voice almost a whispered plea, and Sirius lifts Remus’s trembling hand (when did that happen?) and kisses his knuckles, then his wrist. ‘I missed you,’ he says, and they have lived together for nearly two weeks now but Remus knows what he means.

‘I missed you, too,’ he says, except maybe he says ‘miss’—he’s not quite certain, and both statements are true. Sirius either doesn’t notice, care, or mind; he’s close again, pulling Remus into another kiss, and if something hasn’t changed it’s that Remus doesn’t know how to resist him. Sirius cups his cheek, and Remus grabs his hair, long black locks now smooth and soft again (he’s missed that), the other over his chest feeling his heartbeat (fast, frantic).

 _Let this never end_ , Remus finds himself thinking, willing to lose himself completely to the warm familiarity of Sirius’s body: but then he feels something wet on his cheeks, and, thinking Sirius is crying, parts only to realize it’s himself after all.

‘Remus,’ Sirius says again, worry in his barely audible voice, then, ‘Moony,’ and wipes a thumb over Remus’s cheek, then hesitates, takes half a step backwards. Remus recognizes the guilt on his face, wants to tell it away and then doesn’t.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and at the same time Sirius asks, ‘What’s wrong?’ He’s a mess of emotions, Remus sees, halfway backing out and stepping forward: defensive and receptive at the same time, as ready to take the blame as he is to argue it away.

‘I’m just—’ Remus starts and then stops when he notices how shaky his voice is: he takes a breath to steady himself, all too aware of Sirius tracking his every moment, every involuntary twitch. He’s relieved to see his voice returned to normal when he tries again, ‘I’m just overwhelmed,’ he says, the only explanation to summarise every feeling fighting in him. Sirius’s expression softens, though (Remus thinks, forlorn) the past him wouldn’t have noticed it, not under all the hard edges on Sirius’s face.

‘I know,’ he says, and almost mumbling, ‘me too.’ But he’s not the one crying, and that one unpleasant thought that pestered him every lonely night they spent separated during their former life together resurfaces. _I love him more than he loves me._ And he’d made peace with it, because he knew like everyone knew that James and Sirius were inseparable, always each other’s number ones. But now there’s no James, and Remus feels—

—sick. Sick of his own mind, how dare he even go there—to hope for something so selfish come out of the worst day of his life, when he lost not only one but three people who had made his life worth living. He turns around, leaning over the sink, half so that Sirius can’t see how ugly he’s being, half to make sure he won’t be sick on the floor, at least. But of course he isn’t, there’s no way to purge the awfulness he feels.

And the tears haven’t stopped, so he feels all kinds of pathetic, now.

Sirius’s hand hovers over his shoulder, unsure whether to touch or not, and Remus is unsure whether he wants him to as well. After a few moments of wariness, though, he takes the hand in his, pressing it slightly—comforting? Pleading? He doesn’t know—as he rests them both on his shoulder; then Sirius leans his chin on Remus’s other shoulder, so familiarly, on the spot that always felt like it had been carved just for him, and, miraculously, it still does. It’s reassuring, somehow, like maybe they still have chance.

‘I feel like crying, too,’ Sirius says, and Remus hears the confession in the strained words. ‘I don’t think I can. Not anymore.’ Remus’s heart sinks—blood freezes—the sick rises in his throat again. Thirteen years, twelve of them in Azkaban, it leaves mark. Remus feels even worse for his earlier thoughts, and he feels worse for Sirius, even while knowing that’s the last thing Sirius would want—for someone to feel _sorry_ for him. But ‘sorry’ doesn’t even begin to describe how Remus feels. It’s pain, stark, physical pain every time he thinks about (dreams about) Sirius, all those years lonely in his cell with the Dementors trying to suck out all the good that made him _him_ instead of another Black, obsessed with the purification of their bloodline.

(Some nighs, when the laid in bed, giddy and drunk, they joked about meeting with Sirius’s mother: how it would be when he introduced his half-blood, werewolf _boyfriend_ to her. It amused them for awhile until it didn’t, leaving a bitter taste on their tongues like coffee grounds, and then discarding the subject as it had never been brought up.)

Sirius is still Sirius, he knows that, but he’s a different Sirius; a Sirius Remus has to learn all over again. The question he needs to ask himself is, _Is he still prepared to love that Sirius?_ But he knows the answer already, he’s always known it: after all, he never _stopped_. Not even when he hated him for committing the crimes he didn’t do—not even when he felt the burn of betrayal as Sirius admitted to thinking Remus a spy. (It explained a lot about their last months, and thinking about it makes Remus want to shout at him, cry, ‘How could you think I was responsible, didn’t you know me, didn’t you _trust me;_ you wasted our life, if _I had known_ ’, but he knows it’s not that simple, and that’s another voice he wishes Sirius would silence.)

He tilts his head slightly, leans his on Sirius, warmth spreading through the touch even though both of them are cold. Love is the oldest form of magic, he idly thinks, trying to concentrate on nothing but the smell of Sirius (cheap shampoo and the ever-lingering faint stank of wet dog), something he hasn’t had in his life for too long. At one point he started avoiding dog parks, even walking near them made him ache. The smell of werewolf isn’t quite the same—it’s more savage, unwelcoming, bloodthirsty.

Remus turns around, faces Sirius again: unconsciously, he’s made a decision. They can figure out the details later, he’s ready to give in to what may well be his only chance at happiness, and he knows—feels—that Sirius is too. They’ll figure it out; they always have, always will.

(And, he joylessly thinks, they ended in the ruins of a war; them beginning in the foundations of another one is glumly fitting.)

When Remus kisses him again, Sirius is ready. There are no words said when they make their way into Remus’s bed, none still when they explore each others changed (aged, brutalized) bodies, finding again their favourite spots and discovering that there’s still pleasure to be had, as unlikely as it has seemed.

And when they lie in each other’s arms again, knowing that while their sleep won’t be the best they’ve ever had it will be better than it has been for years, Sirius whispers, ‘I love you’ so quietly that if it were anyone else, anyone who wasn’t tuned to his frequency, he probably wouldn’t have heard it. But Remus oes, and he knows its a test, so he echoes wods they shared in their blissful past.

‘Whatever we become,’ he says, and can feel Sirius smiling. Sadly, tiredly, Remus doesn’t know, but Sirius says, ‘Whatever we are,’ and somehow it settles everything.

 


End file.
